Any body have experiance with bead blasting?
I recenlt had my Sig226 Nickled and they used
a heavy indutrial nickle applied at.004 thick. It came out almost white. I'd like to
get a finer finish out of it.

4V50 Gary

September 29, 2000, 02:54 PM

I've done bead blasting, which is just a finer grain of sand. For a desird finish, you're right in that it will be reflected in the preparation work involved. A sloppy polishing job means that the blue won't be as pleasing. With regards to nickeling, that entails a copper undercoat followed by immersion into a nickeling compound. The color of nickel will be "white" and how it appears depends on the prep work. If the metal surface is highly polished, the nickel will appear like a mirror (the classic nickel finish). However, if the metal surface was bead blasted first, the nickel will appear frosted. I suppose if the metal was sandblasted for an even rougher metal surface, the nickel would look like stainless with a dull white.

Badger Arms

September 29, 2000, 07:21 PM

Any work you do will likely not give you the results you'd like. I've had good results with Never Dull myself. ReBeadblasting it might remove the Nickle.

I'm not sure what your question is, though. Do you want to remove the finish or do you want to touch it up? Do you want to completely redo it?